Apple CEO Tim Cook gives up $75M in stock dividends

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an Apple product launch event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on March 7, 2012 in San Francisco, California. Cook visited the Foxconn manufacturing plant where the iPhone is assembled around March 26, 2012, said media reports.

Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook will not be earning $75 million on dividends on more than one million shares of stock, Reuters reported.

The UK's Daily Telegraph reported Apple said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that Cook had asked to be excluded from a recently instituted company program through which employees can accumulate dividends on their restricted stock units that are still vesting.

The newspaper reported Cook, who took over as chief executive from Steve Jobs in August, has 1.125 million outstanding restricted Apple shares that are vesting over the next 10 years. Half the units are due to vest in 2016, the remainder are due to vest in 2021.

Apple said in March that it would pay a cash dividend of $2.65 per share to its shareholders.

The Associated Press explained that even without the dividend Cook is one of the highest-paid CEOs in America: he was offered a $378 million package when he became Apple’s chief in August.